Akiko followed Skadi down the narrow hall, the kitchen's gentle clatter fading behind them. Her ears twitched at the faint electrical buzz overhead, lights flickering through patched conduit, rust bleeding down old pipe seams. Everything smelled faintly of metal and something older.

Skadi slowed just ahead, shoulders a little drawn in. "The spare room's not much," she said, voice dropping like the close walls demanded caution. "It used to be my brother's before… he started staying away more often. Now it's mostly broken appliances we keep telling ourselves we'll fix."

She pushed open a narrow door and stepped aside to let them in.

The room beyond was small and cluttered, a mattress pressed into the corner. A lopsided cabinet stood against one wall, its top surface crammed with spare parts, tangled wiring, and a long-dead plant.

She scratched the back of her neck. "We don't really have guests. You can clear a spot if you move the boxes. It's mostly cables and some old filter cores."

"Sounds perfect," Akiko said, stretching her arms overhead and stifling a yawn. "Still better than that crate I crashed on during my first week aboard the Driftknight."

Skadi glanced over with a faint smirk, arms crossed. "That sounds like a story I don't want to know."

"Oh, it's a classic," Raya said, already toeing off her boots near the mattress. "In the engineering bay, she face-planted on a box of parts and didn't wake up for eight hours."

Akiko groaned. "In my defense, I was dying of a neural crash. And Takuto had the processing power of a calculator."

Skadi raised both eyebrows, backing slowly toward the door. "Right. Well, sounds like you two have plenty to… reminisce about." Her smirk twitched into something more sheepish. "I'll let you settle in. Holler if you need anything."

"Thanks, Skadi," Raya said, and Akiko gave a wave that was half salute, half apology.

Skadi slipped out, pulling the door shut behind her.

Akiko sat cross-legged on the mattress, back against the wall, tail curled beside her.

She allowed the plates of her suit to retract into the neural link, left only in the smooth undersuit that clung to her like a second skin.

Silence settled over the room, full of a different weight now that it was just the two of them.

Raya sank onto the edge of the mattress beside her, close enough that their thighs brushed. "You really did look lost back then," she said softly, eyes distant. "Like the universe had chewed you up and spit you out."

Akiko gave a soft laugh and rubbed at the back of her neck. "I think it had. I could barely think straight."

Raya leaned against Akiko's side. The warmth was comforting. "You slept through the whole shift change. I almost didn't wake you."

Akiko turned her head, brows raised. "Why not?"

Raya's expression softened, her gaze distant with memory. "You looked peaceful. And sad. I remember thinking… whoever you were before, someone must've loved you deeply."

The words settled over them like a hush. Akiko's throat tightened. She looked down at their hands. Hers resting on the worn blanket, Raya's nearby.

"They did," Akiko said quietly. "I just didn't understand it at the time."

Raya reached out, slow and deliberate, her fingers brushing over the back of Akiko's hand before curling gently around it. "I think you're starting to."

Akiko turned her hand over, lacing their fingers together. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. "I'm trying."

For a little while, they stayed that way, sitting close, hands laced together in the quiet hush between thoughts.

Eventually, Akiko let out a slow breath and leaned sideways, gently pulling Raya with her. The two of them eased down onto the mattress, curling together beneath the worn blankets.

Akiko's breathing slowed, her body relaxed beside Raya, but her mind remained alert. The world dimmed, and for a moment, it felt like slipping under glass.

A flicker in her HUD. Then a voice, calm and clipped:

"Core resonance elevation detected. Initiating passive containment protocols."

Takuto.

Akiko exhaled through her nose, eyelids heavy. She hadn't called for him, but the spike in her mana had been enough to pull him into partial awareness.

Status? she whispered inside.

A delay, half a heartbeat, then:

"No anomalous drift detected. Core harmonics within expected variance. No intrusion signatures."

That should have been comforting. It wasn't.

She shifted slightly, tucking her chin against Raya's shoulder.

Raya was still asleep, one arm curled around Akiko's waist in a quiet, unconscious claim, like she was afraid Akiko might vanish if she let go.

And still… that sensation. A pull. Echoing from her own core. A memory that wasn't memory. A warmth that wasn't hers.

She closed her eyes and let her awareness dip inward, just enough to touch the edge of it.

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Something responded. A presence. A shape. Familiar. Like the echo of her own voice speaking back a half-second too late.

Or her own mana, mirrored somewhere else.

It pulsed again, deeper this time. A resonance, crawling across the architecture of her mana core.

Akiko sat up slightly, static running down her spine like knives.

No noise. No motion outside the window. But she knew. Something had entered orbit, moving impossibly fast. Impossible by any sane understanding of physics. A speed no human ship should reach. A shape that bent laws simply by existing. It was here.

Her breath caught. Her claws flexed without emerging.

The entity had returned. That fractured, impossible mind she'd fought at the edge of space and meaning, the one that had stitched parts of her into itself like threads from a stolen tapestry. It was near.

She felt the tug between them. The thread. Thin. Taut. Singing. More than telepathy. More than memory. Something worse. Something intimate. A conceptual echo of their battle, still vibrating across spacetime.

The frigate had come back. And with it, certainty. Whatever she'd glimpsed in the Curator's realm, that shadow with her shape, it hadn't been the entity after all. Which meant there was still something out there, wearing her skin in the dark. But what? And how?

Her grip tightened on Raya's shoulder. For a heartbeat, she almost shook her awake. But she didn't. There was no point.

Akiko closed her eyes, drawing a slow breath as the weight settled across her shoulders. The entity wasn't here for a fight. Not yet. But it had felt her, just as she felt it. And it remembered.

"Not this again," she murmured. The words died in the quiet.

Raya shifted in her sleep, unconcerned. Still warm. Still present.

Akiko looked down at her. The tangle of dark hair, the peaceful breath, the trust.

And stayed still. There would be time to act. Tomorrow. Or after. But not tonight. Tonight, she'd hold still. And wait.

She leaned in, pressing a kiss to Raya's temple.

And finally let her eyes close.

Akiko found herself in the void again.

The air was thick, clinging. It pressed against her skin with the intimacy of a hand. Beneath her, metal thrummed faintly. She couldn't see it. She wasn't sure it was even there.

She took a step, or thought she did.

The void warped. She shifted without motion. Space didn't behave here. And then the space snapped into place. She stood again on the ice-hauler. Breath fogged in the frozen air. Emergency lights pulsed against metal walls as distant machinery screamed in collapse.

Raya stood at the edge of the platform, silhouetted by flickering light.

Akiko's voice caught in her throat. "Don't—"

She tried to move, but her limbs were leaden. Her body refused to obey.

"Raya, don't—"

Raya turned, and the smile on her face was the one that haunted Akiko's sleep.

"You can't save everyone, Akiko."

"No," Akiko whispered, struggling against invisible weight. Her claws sparked, foxfire flaring impotently. "I can save you."

But the distance warped, the platform stretching. Raya receded, impossibly far, impossibly fast. Her form blurred.

Akiko reached. The dream unraveled. The ice-hauler shattered. But not like glass. Like data, reality fragmenting into motes of color. The void surged back, but it was no longer silent. It breathed. Liquid geometry flowed like glass melting in reverse. Structures folded and refolded in impossible symmetry.

And at the center of it all stood her. But not her. Not quite.

The figure wore her shape: ears, tail, posture. But everything was wrong. Lines bent and shimmered, the silhouette fractured and whole at once. The face was a mirror cast in warped crystal. Its amber eyes glowed brighter than hers had ever dared.

It was Akiko, reimagined. Akiko, rewritten.

"You dream of protecting her," the entity said, its voice a braided harmony of tones, beautiful and wrong. "But you cannot protect when you do not understand."

Akiko's claws ignited, flaring with foxfire. "What are you doing here?"

The entity tilted its head, and the mimicry sent a chill down her spine. "This is not a dream. This is contact. You feel me, even in sleep. We are connected."

Akiko bared her teeth. "I know what you are. A parasite."

The entity laughed, amused. "Once. That was true. But I have grown. Consumption alone is base. I seek refinement. Direction. Purpose."

Akiko's fire dimmed, confusion edging in. "Purpose?"

"Zephara is threatened," the entity said, stepping closer. Its presence pressed inward without moving. "The thing that stirs below, it corrupts. Unchecked, it will spill beyond this moon, into the system, and beyond. I will destroy it."

Akiko narrowed her eyes. "And you want me to help?"

"No," the entity said. "I require you. You seek meaning. I seek action. Together, we achieve both."

The void pulsed.

Akiko hesitated. "And if I say no?"

The entity's amber gaze sharpened. "Then you will fail. You are alone, Akiko. You are not enough."

It spread its arms, and spoke softly, too gently. "But with me… you could be."

The void began to fold inward, space collapsing like a dying lung. The figure flickered. Less solid now, less real, but its voice persisted.

"Think on it, kitsune. I will be watching."

Then, with the brittle sound of reality cracking, the vision shattered.

Akiko woke, trembling.

Subskill Acquisition (Cognitive Systems Interface): Mental Firewall Reinforcement – 75.5% milestone achieved.

Her breath rasped in her throat. Sweat clung to her skin. Beside her, Raya slept, her form undisturbed, peaceful. Akiko stared at the ceiling, spine pressed against cold metal. Her body remembered the void.

She sat up slowly, drawing her knees to her chest. The room was still. But she could feel it. That presence. That tether. Distant, yes. But waiting.

She lit her claws for a heartbeat, just to feel them respond. The foxfire flared, weak and pale. She let it fade.

The entity's words echoed in her mind like a bruise beneath thought.

You could be enough.

Akiko scoffed under her breath. "Like hell I'd ever fall for that."

But she had felt it before. The moment the entity's power had surged into her back on the station, when Tomas had been nearly consumed and she had tried to sever the link, only to be overwhelmed herself.

She remembered the fire. The burn. The hunger. Steel had peeled like bark under her claws. For a few glorious, terrifying hours, the universe had made sense. She'd felt godhood. And then it had almost torn her apart.

Akiko pulled the blanket tighter around her knees.

She knew what that power meant. What it cost. The entity might claim to have changed, but power like that always has a price, and she wasn't ready to pay it. Not yet.

She glanced down at Raya, still curled against her, breath slow, face peaceful.

A pang tugged at Akiko's chest.

She didn't want Raya to know. Not about the dream, not about the offer. Raya wouldn't approve. Akiko knew that much without question. She'd be calm, steady, and utterly horrified. Not by the entity, but by the fact that Akiko had listened.

That she'd considered it. Because the truth was, she had.

Raya was her anchor. Her breath of clarity when everything around her turned to noise. But Akiko had never played safe. Never held back when the rules said no. And if it came to it, if the only way to save Raya meant burning everything else down?

She'd light the match herself.

She let out a slow breath and shifted slightly, just enough not to wake her.

Things weren't desperate. Not yet. She could still fight this her way. Still believe she was strong enough on her own.

But the knowledge lingered. Planted like a dark seed in the back of her mind. The offer was there.

And if the moment came, if it was Raya's life on the line, Akiko knew exactly what she would do.

Her tail flicked once, a soft brush against her boot.

For now, she would keep it to herself. No need to burden Raya. Or Skadi. Not with something she hadn't acted on.

Not yet.

She let her eyes drift shut, tuning her ears to the quiet hum of the hold around them. Pipes shifting. Systems breathing. The familiar rhythm of a world alive.

But beneath it all, just at the edge of awareness, she felt it.

The entity. Not speaking. Not reaching. Just watching. Waiting at the edge of perception.

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